It’s almost time once again for the GRAMMY Awards, “Music’s Biggest Night”, celebrating the best in music from the past year of many musical genres. The ceremony will take place on February 10, 2013, but on Wednesday night, December 5, CBS will be broadcasting the GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live!!, a one-hour event beginning at 10 PM Eastern and featuring performances by Dierks Bentley, Fun., Hunter Hayes, Luke Bryan, Maroon 5, Ne-Yo, The Band Perry, and The Who. Now, obviously, not every award will be announced during the telecast, but many where these performers are actually nominated in will be presented in full, and the complete list is usually updated online shortly afterwards. This means that’s it’s time to make some predictions. Continuing a trend over the past few years, I’m thinking that the nominations will trend more commercial as a whole, though there could be surprises as usual. Here’s what I’m anticipating for the Big Four Awards: Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Best New Artist.

(The actual eligibility period for the releases in contention for nominations is October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012, so keep that in mind as you read these predictions.)

They’ve been nominated for six awards and lost all of them, so I’m thinking this will be the year for Mumford & Sons to finally clinch a big one with Album Of The Year for Babel. With the second-best opening of 2012 on the Album Chart (600,000 copies sold), it’s a commercial and critical success, the perfect storm for them to receive the win. Frank Ocean is my backup choice to win the Award. Ocean, who made waves in July when he came out in a blog note, has done alright commercially, but has been a huge critical effort, with glowing reviews from a number of writers. A win would push the album past Gold status and possibly to Platinum, while at the same time, make a huge statement for the R&B and hip-hop community. Past GRAMMY nominees for Album Of The Year Bob Dylan and Coldplay will most likely secure nominations once again, and The Black Keys, who won Best Alternative Album for Brothers in 2011, will most likely get their first nod for Album Of The Year with El Camino, which gained them an even bigger audience.

RECORD OF THE YEAR
Adele – Set Fire To The Rain
Drake featuring Rihanna – Take Care
fun. featuring Janelle Monae – We Are YoungGotye featuring Kimbra – Somebody That I Used To Know
Mumford & Sons – I Will Wait

Gotye and Kimbra are pretty much a lock for winning with their international smash. Mumford & Sons would be a backup as “I Will Wait” is another solid single for the band and would only ensure them winning Album Of The Year. The other three nominees were all commercial successes but even Adele, who swept at last year’s ceremony, won’t see a win this year in the category, though she’ll probably easily get a win for her Live At The Royal Albert Hall DVD in the Long Form Video category.

This one is a tough choice because “Set Fire To The Rain” and “Somebody That I Used To Know” weren’t submitted by their respective labels to be considered for this Award. That being said, I think Frank Ocean will be walking away with this one. It’s been a slow burner at Urban radio and a win would probably guarantee at least a minor CHR radio crossover. The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, would be my second choice, which was included in the soundtrack to President Obama’s successful reelection campaign and saw notable gains because of it. Though Wrecking Ball won’t likely be nominated anywhere near the top tier of awards, the single is strong enough to hold its ground in this category. Mumford & Sons is another obvious nominee and would probably have an easier time winning Song Of The Year, but they’ll be denied. The two poppier releases by Carly Rae Jepsen and Katy Perry could pull off a surprise, but I have serious doubts about it. They would be lucky enough to be nominated.

Best New Artist is for sure going to be a competitive category this year. Frank Ocean is a given, so is Gotye, but I’m predicting the Award goes to Fun. as they have two big hits under the belt and I’m pretty sure this category is going to skew way more commercial this year after two consecutive years of wins by artists far outside the mainstream, Esperanza Spalding in 2010 and Bon Iver in 2011. Hunter Hayes will be the token Country nominee, and yes, One Direction will get a nominee for Best New Artist. Even Justin Bieber got nominated for the category in 2010. The boy band has a better chance of collecting it than Bieber did, but they won’t.

Come back on December 5 to see how I did! If you have any alternative predictions for these four categories, let me know in the comments!

I would argue that fun.’s Some Nights is at least going to be nominated, if not win. It’s possible this could finally be Mumford and Son’s year as you say, but I will honestly be surprised if Some Nights doesn’t pick up a nomination. Otherwise, I’d agree with most of this. Cary Rae could pull an upset, though, no matter how much I hope you’re right and I’m wrong. It’ll be interesting to see how the nominations turn out!

Interesting picks, but I think Best New artist will go to either Frank Ocean or Alabama Shakes. As big as fun. were this year, I think the voters are going to continue the trend of getting behind artists they think have staying power. fun.’s songs were huge, but, listening to the rest of the album, I don’t really hear much evidence they’ll have much staying power.

My vote is Mumford and sons all the way!!! Haven’t gone a day without listening to the new album Babel since the day it came out! Also love Coldplay Mylo Xyloto, that album was the soundtrack of my life as I married the love of my life

I’m a HUGE fan of Mumford & Sons and Fun.. I love their music (…sometimes you need to be selective in song choices though haha). I’d love if they nabbed some awards this year, they deserve it! Great post, thanks for sharing and congrats on being Freshly Pressed!

Great post with a good spread of music. Surely either Frank Ocean or the XX? I’d love for the Weeknd to get a mention, but I can’t see him winning it. Check out my top 10 albums of the year on my blog? Thanks! There’s a few decent choices in this list, you’ve got to give it that! Take a look at my blog to see my personally chosen top 10? Thanks in advance.

Congrats on being FP. I hope Frank Ocean takes home best new artist. He’s very creative, soulful, and has a smooth voice. But must there be so many expletives peppering his lyrics? Barry White, for example, interjected many spoken words into his romantic songs without ever being offensive. I guess I’m reacting to a generation gap-being 48, I’m in Frank Ocean’s parents’ generation. I can’t believe I’m actually old enough to say that. Cheers.